


homestuck RETOLD

by unoriginalHandle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Humor, Retelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:11:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unoriginalHandle/pseuds/unoriginalHandle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request from the Kinkmeme:</p><p>"So uh. I read Better Myths regularly. So. Considering the labyrinthine and creation-myth-esque plot Homestuck has going can we get some Acts retold Better Myths style?</p><p>bettermyths.blogspot.com for the unfamiliar!</p><p>(I really really like retellings of that style I'm so sorry.)"</p><p>http://homesmut.livejournal.com/14212.html?thread=27420804#t27420804</p><p>So yeah, Homestuck retold in the style of that guy up there! If you like this, you should totally go read his blog; I am the Padawan and he is the Master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. introductions and shit

**Author's Note:**

> Quick caveat: Ovid typically takes the piss out of whatever he's covering, so I figured I had to do that. If this comes across as being critical or flame-bait, know that I'm being facetious for the sake of humor.

introductions and shit

ok

firstly  
no i am not Ovid  
that guy is awesome  
and can get people to pay him to be sexy and shirtless on video  
this is not to imply that i am not awesome  
or that i do not have a fucking tight set of pecs  
that you could grate cheese off of  
but just so you know

so  
HOMESTUCK

i hear you  
you’re saying  
homestuck  
the fuck is homestuck not-Ovid  
i can’t look up google or  
you know  
BOTHER DOING THE TINIEST BIT OF RESEARCH  
EVEN THOUGH IT REQUIRES NO GODDAMN EFFORT  
WHATSOFUCKINGEVER  
but that’s cool  
i’m here for you  
you lazy bastards and/or bitches

anyway  
homestuck is a webcomic  
well no its more of a flash cartoon  
well no maybe 1% is a flash animation  
so really its a long fucking novel  
actually its got videogame elements  
FUCK IT  
homestuck doesn’t know what the fuck it is  
ANDREW HUSSIE  
you’re gonna want to remember that name  
‘cuz he’s gonna be the bane of your existence  
HUSSIE  
was like  
OH MAN  
I’M GONNA MAKE AN EXPERIMENTAL INTERNET THINGY  
AND MAKE IT REALLY FUCKING HARD TO DEFINE ITS GENRE  
BECAUSE  
YOU KNOW  
I LOOK AT MY LIFE AND I THINK  
have i caused enough pain and suffering in the world  
and i think  
FUCK NO

he’s kind of like that

so yeah  
homestuck is this weird internet thingy  
and it’s basically eating the internet alive  
it’s fucking everywhere  
it’s like  
if there was some kind of bubonic plague  
and you were watching all of your friends catch it  
and they were breaking out into this horrible oozy rash  
but instead of trying to  
i don’t know  
get cured  
or tell their family that they love them  
or die with dignity or some shit  
they like shove the pus filled boils  
right into your fucking face  
and scream about quadrants and auspistices the whole fucking time

its kind of hard to miss is what i’m saying  
so you may want to know what it’s all about  
except you look at the website and think  
JESUS  
HOW FUCKING LONG IS THIS THING  
i’ll tell you  
REAL FUCKING LONG  
if we were in pre-internet days  
and shit still had to be printed on paper  
homestuck would only be read by like  
bodybuilders  
or the incredible hulk  
everyone else would use the books as like  
building foundation  
or tank armor  
so i thought i’d save everyone some time  
and just sum up what has happened thus far  
in this batshit crazy thing  
it’s still gonna be hella long though  
so you just might want to go relieve yourself  
before you sit down

you ready  
did you wash your hands  
NO  
YOU FUCKING DISGRACE  
OTHER PEOPLE USE THIS COMPUTER SHITSTAIN  
GO BACK AND WASH THEM  
THEN COME BACK WITH PURELL  
AND WIPE THAT KEYBOARD CLEAN

you done?  
that keyboard better be sparkly as shit  
k  
let’s do this  
WHERE MAKING THIS HAPEN  
(if you already know not to correct the typo  
congratulations  
welcome to the realm of the damned  
population: you and me)


	2. act 1: the note desolation plays

Act 1  
the note desolation plays

so we start out with this  
OH SNAP WAIT  
before we can do this part we have to do

THE HOMESTUCK BETA

see at first Hussie was like  
herpa derp ima do this whole thing in flash  
how hard could that be OH GOD  
really hard it turns out  
so after like a day or two  
Hussie was like  
man fuck this  
and then he redid it with photoshop  
despite the fact that the site’s name is  
MS PAINT ADVENTURES  
it’s actually not that important except for two things  
one: homestuck fans worship these specific numbers  
at like a religious level  
if hussie hadn’t come to his senses  
the original first number would’ve been 410  
instead, it’s 413  
don’t ask why  
two: hussie decided to change the main characters age from 10 to 13  
now THIS is important  
because making characters into teenagers  
has inspired a flock of perverts  
to write entire libraries of smutty fanfiction about them

Hussie no doubt lies in bed at night  
wide awake  
imagining what horrors he has loosed upon the unsuspecting world  
i kid i kid  
the perverts would’ve still united even if the characters were 10  
seriously though  
anyone who reads or posts on their kinkmeme is a horrible person  
who deserves to be SHUNNED by society  
SHUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNED  
shunned

okay anyway false start  
we start out on April 13th, 2009  
in a Washington suburb  
with this little dork kid  
with glasses overbite and a holy-shit-how-has-Hussie-not-been-sued “green slime ghost” shirt  
standing in his room  
also he has no arms  
yet he also kind of does  
that’s called SYMBOLISM or something  
anyway i just wanted to point out that all characters have no arms until they need them  
and pointing this out is a MSPA tradition  
which we will be skipping from here on out  
gotta keep moving dudes and dudettes

anyway he’s like thirteen  
it’s his birthday  
and for whatever reason it’s only just now that he’s getting an actual name  
how the fuck does childhood function in this society  
up to now has this poor kid been referred to as ?  
well actually no  
later on we see a flashback where he is referred to by name before he gets it  
it’s confusing but who cares

anyway his first proposed name is WHO GIVES A FUCK  
his final name is   
JOHN EGBERT  
and his screen name is ECTOBIOLOGIST  
John likes shit movies and lame prank paraphernalia   
he hates Betty Crocker and baked goods in general  
and as we shall see later on  
he is kind of a dumbass  
he also likes long walks on the beach and puppies  
ladies

so John’s waiting in his monochromatic bedroom  
so that he can play this video game called SBURB  
shit’s so cash he’s beta-testing it  
shit was supposed to be mailed three days ago but it’s late  
so he’s talking to his INTERNET FRIENDS about it

here’s who they are  
listen up this is important

you’ve got TENTACLETHERAPIST  
who is this goth chick who talks like  
oh i am so fucking sophisticated and i insist upon using proper grammar and punctuation  
all the fucking time  
ABLOOBLOOBLOO

then there’s GARDENGNOSTIC  
who is like this really super-enthusiastic girly girl  
who is also psychic (???)

then finally you have TURNTABLEGODHEAD  
who types like a fucking angel fallen from heaven above  
although he’s kind of an insufferable prick really  
i guess even assholes can use MAD METAPHORS, YO

anyway John is like  
ugh why isn’t this stupid game here yet  
and his friends are like  
why don’t you look outside  
maybe it just got here  
AND IT DID  
crisis fucking averted everybody   
though it should be noted that John does not know what to call the flag on the mailbox  
protip: CALL IT A FLAG  
and so begins the one-man dumbass show starring John Egbert

anyway after the thrilling nail-biting wait for the flag  
we get a brand-new dramatic obstacle:  
John wants the game  
except  
HO SHIT  
HIS DAD PULLED UP GOT THE MAIL AND LEFT IT IN HIS LOCKED CAR  
thrilling  
why do people read this again

so John goes outside to get the mail but basically spaces out listening to the wind  
thinking about something missing in his life  
and it’s real deep  
except later on John seems perfectly fucking dandy with everything  
even when things turn to UTTER SHIT all the time  
and entire universes are at stake  
I honestly don’t think John is smart enough to experience existentialism  
all the parts of his brain that could’ve processed ennui  
have been rededicated to memorizing Nicolas Cage quotes

anyway John basically gets into a bunch of shenanigans trying to get his fucking game  
most of this act is basically introducing game concepts  
because this is a pseudo-videogame  
except basically every concept gets left behind in the fucking dust  
as Hussie would realize  
MONTHS LATER  
that no one gives a shit about sylladexes  
don’t ask what a sylladex is  
just know that they are inventories that are REALLY USEFUL  
because you can carry like literal tons of stuff in your back pocket  
like pizza  
or beer  
which sounds bitching but it’s really not because they are also  
REALLY  
FUCKING  
INCONVIENIENT  
seriously  
John spends half of this act launching his shit through windows  
not like actual shit mind you  
he’s dumb, but John Egbert AIN’T NO FUCKING CHIMPANZEE  
but yeah  
sylladexes suck

so John messes around his house which is filled with CREEPY CLOWNS  
which EVERYONE HATES  
except for John’s dad  
except not really  
I don’t want to spoil you  
but if you don’t like clowns  
FUCKING COMMUNICATE  
USE YOUR WORDS  
it will save you so much trouble

John does not know this apparently  
because when he finds his dad  
THEY START DUELING  
right there  
in the kitchen  
they aren’t even playing  
John is using a FUCKING HAMMER  
holy shit  
our main hero is a patricidal maniac  
i could understand the Greeks and Romans pulling this shit  
because they were like unwashed pederasts or some shit  
but god damn  
it’s not even like he’s provoking John  
all he’s doing is offering him cake  
NEVER OFFER JOHN EGBERT SWEETS  
he will use your skull as a hat  
and then later he will entertain small children  
by pulling rabbits from said skull-hat

in the end though nobody gets hurt because  
John’s dad is a fucking badass  
John can’t even hit him  
so he uses a smoke pellet as a distraction  
steals the mail from the kitchen  
and retreats to his room  
probably to have a victory wank over his collection of skull-hats

actually nevermind  
skull-wanking is another character’s fetish  
but we won’t get to him for a long time yet

anyway John looks at the mail  
and he’s got two items  
one is a red package that contains the prop rabbit toy from the Nic Cage flick Con Air  
John is over the fucking moon over this  
because he is dumb  
and if you told him that a used adult diaper had been worn by Nic Cage  
he’d sleep next to it at night  
staring at it  
he would stay awake just to hear it breathing  
or that’s what he’d say because he’s all about bad power ballads  
so long as they are used in equally bad movies  
anyway I don’t know why i told you about that because this rabbit  
will HAVE NO SIGNIFICANCE  
WHATSOEVER  
to the overall plotline  
this is my telling you an undeniable truth  
because I respect you too much to lie to you  
obviously

the other item is  
FUCKING  
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS  
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRB  
woot i guess

John installs it on his computer  
but tentacleTherapist tells him  
ha ha you fucked up  
or that’s what she would be saying  
if she knew the meaning of “concise”  
FYI: she does not  
anyway she says Sburb needs two discs  
a client and a server disc  
John only has the client disc  
the server disc is still out in the car with a MYSTERIOUS GREEN PACKAGE  
take notes children this will be on the quiz  
did i not mention the quiz  
oops

so what this means is that tentacleTherapist  
who has HER SHIT TOGETHER  
and therefore has both discs  
will be manipulating John’s environment  
as his server player  
if you’ve ever played the sims  
you get the basic idea of how the game is played  
TT moves shit around and builds weird-ass machinery  
the purpose of which CAN ONLY BE GUESSED AT  
in the process however TT totally wrecks John’s house  
throwing bathtubs through walls and shit  
and he’s like  
WHAT DID I EVER DO TO DESERVE THIS?  
and God’s like   
OEDIPUS COMPLEX, MUHFUCKER  
actually I don’t think God could’ve said that  
I don’t think he falls into this cosmology  
we’re gonna find out later that most supernatural beings want to kill you  
along with everything you ever loved  
so I guess there’s maybe a 50/50 chance of God existing  
if we’re talking about the Judaic God  
we shall see

so like I said  
TT builds a bunch of technology that’s not going to be explained in this part  
so you don’t need to hear about it  
but what you DO need to hear about is the KERNELSPRITE  
John whacks this thing with a sledgehammer  
and out pops this blue glowy thing

incidentally John is defined by the color blue  
it’s the color of his chat text  
and is therefore the overarching motif of his existence  
it’s the same for the other characters in this story  
I am SO GLAD that our universe was made by a saner god  
and that our culture does not therefore operate like this  
it would be embarrassing for me to be defined by my teenage screenname  
FOREVER  
you would see goffik blood red text and think  
there goes satanz_sorrow626  
may god have mercy on their soul

anyway John has no idea what this glowy thing does  
neither will you, at this point  
but TT is reading a walkthrough  
that’s telling her what to do  
except it abruptly cuts off FOR SOME REASON  
can’t imagine why  
so she merges or “prototypes” the sprite with this stuffed clown doll  
also the clown doll was horribly deformed by John  
back when he was doing POINTLESS BULLSHIT  
with his sylladex  
so the end result his a floating smiling ghostly maimed CLOWN DOLL HEAD  
which is speaking in UNINTELLIGIBLE GIBBERISH  
sound fun?  
John thinks so too  
because when he sees this horror  
he’s like  
I NOW FORSAKE MY GOD  
FOR HE HAS CLEARLY FORSAKEN ME  
or that’s what he’d be saying  
if he didn’t notice that the machine that the sprite popped out of   
has an ominous countdown timer  
also John uses his telescope and sees a meteor flying straight for his house  
these two phenomena are possibly related

so John’s like OH SHIT OH SHIT WHAT DO I DO  
and TT’s like CALM YO TITS I’M TRYING TO READ A GAMEFAQ  
HOLY FUCKBALLS LOOK AT HOW THESE DUMBASSES TYPE  
IT’S LIKE THEY NEVER READ THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE  
OR NOTHING  
so they’re trying to make this totem thingy which will apparently help  
though they aren’t sure how  
really they’re just winging it and trying not to shit themselves in terror  
but TT’s internet is being broken up by a storm AND IS COMPLETE SHIT  
so her connection is lost   
while she was holding the bathtub in front of John’s door  
which drops there  
and she accidentally leaves John in locked in his room  
with   
TWO  
MINUTES  
TO MIIIIIIIIIIDNIGHT  
(sorry I was listening to some Iron Maiden)

so then we meet TT and find out that her name is  
ROSE LALONDE  
she’s into Lovecraft, Freud, and knitting  
and she doesn’t know the meaning of purple prose  
then again, she writes in purple  
so maybe SHE’S JUST DICKING WITH US

She lives in a mansion in the fucking backwoods of New York  
and she scrambles to the top floor of her cushy mansion  
to steal WiFi from the lab next door  
she also makes a point to avoid her MOTHER  
whom she doesn’t like FOR REASONS WE’LL DISCUSS LATER

So she’s back online and John is basically kissing his ass goodbye  
but then they fuck around with machinery and create some...  
shiny  
crystal  
apple  
???  
how the fuck is that going to stop a meteor  
but anyway he takes a bite of it right as the meteor slams into his house  
and  
did he survive?  
did he just get blown away?  
the fuck just happened

we’ll have to find out another day  
cuz that’s the end of act one  
and act two  
is a story for another time


	3. act 2 raise of the conductor’s baton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Went a bit late there...oops. I also just noticed that I've been posting the chapter name when the Archive already lists it. It's already there in the last two chapters so I guess I'll keep doing it? Hurrah redundancy. :P

act 2 raise of the conductor’s baton

so we start out in the distant future  
with this dirty drifter  
or WAYWARD VAGABOND  
who looks kind of like a mummy  
and who might not be human  
he’s walking through the desert wastes  
and he finds this half-buried vault thingy  
with the Sburb insiny  
insnia  
isigni  
FUCK IT  
with the Sburb logo on top  
are you intrigued?  
TOO BAD  
change of subject

so then we take a look at Rose’s walkthrough  
where she basically explains  
in her trademark long-winded ramble  
that playing SBURB will drop meteors on your planet  
also the world is ending  
sucks

so it turns out that John’s not dead  
biting into his crystal apple  
has transported John’s house and yard  
and everything contained therein  
to this alternate dimension of infinite darkness  
where the house is suspended on this huge pillar of rock  
jutting out from a bottomless floor covered in mist  
also there are apparently monsters lurking in the darkness  
this is ominous  
maybe we were better off with the meteor

John’s kernelsprite splits in two  
with one half sinking into the mist  
and the other rising up into the sky  
leaving behind some little portals  
way up in the air  
John still has the main part of it though  
so he has this ghost clown stalking him  
speaking in tongues  
great

so John explores his house  
his Dad is nowhere to be found  
and there’s oily crap all over the place

it should be noted that John is hearing a voice in his head while all this is going on  
this is because Hussie had taken over the command input  
instead of taking requests from the forums  
because he knew that he could not trust his fanbase  
to not have John dry hump the kernelsprite for 9000 pages straight  
this voice is the future hobo  
who broke into the vault  
and who is using a computer  
that controls John’s brain  
from the future

man i don’t know

so John contacts Rose  
and Rose is all like  
yo you should prototype that sprite again  
it’ll be wicked powerful  
and John’s like  
okay but this time let’s do it with something less disturbing this time around  
and Rose is like  
how bout this massive jokebook you worship  
and John’s like sweet  
but then fate’s like  
better idea  
why not use your dead grandmother’s ashes  
and then John’s like FUCK NO  
but it happens anyway  
and the sprite disappears

so John talks to Rose  
but she’s like  
bzzt obsequious  
bzzt malodorous  
bzzt cunnilingus  
bzzzzzzzzzzzzt  
she keeps losing her connection  
because meteors are setting the woods around her house  
ON FIRE  
and the power just went out  
and her laptop is pretty much dead  
she lasts long enough to explain the whole apocalypse thing to John  
and then she accidentally drops the family car into the big-ass abyss  
you might recall that the package and server disc were still in there  
oops

so John talks to turntechGodhead and is like  
hey man we need you for this game  
but TG says  
no thank you this game sounds lame  
i do not want to get the nerdstank on me  
right after i just showered  
but John explains that Rose is about to get roasted by meteors and shit  
and TG’s like oh well that’s different  
except  
well  
shit

so then we go to the past  
and meet TG aka  
DAVE STRIDER  
man  
this  
this guy is a piece of work  
he’s basically this douchebag  
you can’t really call him a hipster  
but he’s pretty much obsessed with irony  
he has dedicated himself to emulating the terribleness  
of the clueless white guy rapper  
when Dave heard of Fred Durst he was like  
ha ha that’s totally lame  
I WANT TO BE HIM  
so yeah  
he’s following in the footsteps of his douchebag brother who raised him  
I suspect that Dave started out as a douchey tumor on his brother’s douchey ass  
that gradually gained sentience  
and his brother just couldn’t bear to part with it after surgery  
so he gave it sunglasses and a bird-wig to make it appear human  
so yeah fuck Dave

Dave lives in this top-floor apartment in a big Texan city  
probably Houston it’s never really specified  
where he surrounds himself with whatever he could use to make himself look like a total bro  
turntables and mixing equipment  
plasma tvs and high-end gaming consoles  
loads of poor quality swords and ninja stars and batarangs  
fuck  
that’s actually kind of cool  
I kind of want his stuff  
why must fortune favor the dickweed

anyway he and his brother each managed to get their own copies of Sburb  
despite the fact that Dave is totally uninterested in it  
he basically just sees the game as a status symbol of ironic bro-ness  
but he can’t use the game when John asks him to  
because it turns out he has quite possibly the WORST SYLLADEX IN THE GAME

see  
a crow randomly bursts in through his window  
and steals Dave’s discs  
I guess because crows are PC gaming enthusiasts???  
I wonder what sort of rig the crow’s got  
can it run Crysis 2

so Dave shouts at it  
but his sylladex is activated by certain combinations of vowels and consonants  
long story short  
Dave accidentally launches a katana at the crow  
impaling it and sending out the window  
where it lands on a ledge several stories down  
so when John asks for help  
Dave has to go search for his brother  
and try and get his copy  
more on that later

so Rose is running around the house in the dark  
trying to get outside to the backup generator in her yard  
but she wants to avoid her mom  
I guess I promised to explain their drama  
so now seems like a good time to do so  
see Rose dislikes her mom  
because she’s convinced that they have this huge mindgame going on between them  
basically her mom is so fucking loaded that she can afford to blow insane amounts of cash  
on the pettiest shit  
when Rose’s cat died when she was a toddler  
she asked her mom if they could give it a funeral  
and her mom’s like  
HICCUP  
NOT ONLT CAN WE HAB A FUNERAL  
I WILL PIMB  
*pimp  
YOUR FUNERRALL  
OUT  
hic  
so the cat got treated to some top-of-the-line taxidermy for its corpse  
it got a little black suit  
and a tiny kitty coffin  
and then they packed all that shit into a fucking custom made mausoleum  
she does this kind of bullshit all the time  
and Rose believes that her mom is mocking her ironically  
because she does not give a shit about money  
ergo she does not give a shit about Rose  
of course that’s her theory  
an alternative theory is that  
Rose’s mom does not give a shit about money  
because she IS A FUCKING LUSH  
who is TOO WASTED to understand the value of a dollar  
which seems likely  
because there is basically never a point where she is not holding a martini  
ever

so Rose is creeping through the living room  
which contains a 20 foot tall wizard statue  
based off a character from her slash fiction  
obviously another attempt at belittlement courtesy of Lalonde Sr  
and Rose almost makes it to the front door when her mom’s all like  
lol  
heeeeyyyyyj ross  
i got yob a ponny  
*pony  
ler’s get shitfaced  
and Rose is like  
oh but I couldn’t possibly  
which means  
FUCK YOU  
FUCK YOU YOU RANCID BAG OF VODKA AND LIPSTICK  
I WISH WE WERE BOTH DEAD  
and then she breaks out the knitting needles  
and tries to start some matricide up in here  
I’m honestly not surprised anymore  
but it doesn’t matter  
Mom is too fast  
even when she’s blitzed  
I don’t know if she even KNOWS she’s being assaulted  
what’s going on in that gin-addled head  
is she like  
lmfao Roie you can’t mend my cloths whilr i’m still WERRING THEM  
sillhy  
I guess  
because nothing comes of it  
Mom just starts dusting one of her giant wizard heads  
and Rose runs out the back  
saying  
hugs and kisses  
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRE

so back to John  
he’s tooling around his house  
reading a book that might help him find a less shitty way  
of hauling his useless prank material around  
when this little midget demon wearing jester’s clothes attacks him  
so John sees that this “shale imp”  
has his new toy bunny hostage  
and he’s like  
YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU HATH WROUGHT  
so he pulls out the sledgehammer  
which is too heavy for him to use properly  
and so the hammerhead breaks off  
does that stop John’s bloodlust  
FUCK NO  
he just starts beating the thing to a pulp with the stick  
before getting knocked back on his ass  
which finally UNLEASHES THE BEAST  
and then John uses his sylladex to catapult  
the hammerhead towards the imp  
killing it and rendering its shattered and torn remains  
into giant fruit gushers  
wait what  
okay okay we’ll deal with this later

so John tries to exit the room when a bucket of water falls on his head  
meet NANNASPRITE  
the result of that clown abomination prototyping with John’s Nanna’s ashes  
who has just pranked her grandson and is like  
HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO  
YOU JUST GOT SERVED BOYYYYYYY

so basically Nannasprite just starts dropping the exposition  
because this is what sprites do in Sburb  
every player gets one  
they help you  
heal you  
fight with you  
and give you basic information about the game  
although they can’t tell you anything too useful  
without speaking in riddles  
so buckle down kids  
you can’t even hold all these expositions

so Nannasprite’s like  
k  
so this infinitely dark void we’re in  
this is the Medium  
an alternate dimension in the Incipisphere  
which exists outside of time and space as we know it  
at the center of this Incipiwhatever  
is SKAIA  
which is like a giant ball of puffy blue and white clouds  
and it’s like a  
a  
fuck  
it’s real fucking important  
something about unlimited creative potential  
Skaia’s a VIP  
very important poofball

at Skaia’s center is the battlefield  
which is a 9 by 9 chessboard  
with just a black king and a white king  
circling each other for eternity in stalemate  
thing is as players enter the medium  
the battlefield gets more complex  
now that John’s there, it’s a proper chessboard filled with pieces  
these pieces represent the forces of good and evil  
which are called PROSPIT and DERSE  
Prospit wants to protect Skaia  
from Derse which just wants to smash shit up for no reason  
and I guess Prospitians are really shitty chess players  
because they apparently always lose this game  
the player’s goal  
is to get to Skaia through THE SEVEN GATES  
before Derse wrecks the place  
and figure out THE ULTIMATE RIDDLE  
Derse also kidnapped John’s dad  
so there’s that too

it sounds pretty straight forward  
but don’t get used to it  
this story moves away from all that pretty quickly  
it goes so far off the rails  
it becomes  
what’s his name from transformers  
ASTROTRAIN  
that stupid train/space shuttle  
homestuck just up and says  
pfft  
fuck rails bitch  
I’ma go into MOTHERFUCKIN ORBIT  
pchooooo

so John’s like  
so if we do this riddle thing we can save Earth?  
and Nanna’s like  
LOL NO  
PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE’S FUCKED  
and the reaction to this is pretty muted  
it’s basically this one panel of sadface  
then everyone goes back to making jokes and references about sub-par children’s entertainment  
for the rest of the comic  
nothing but Ben Stiller jokes and extinction events  
kind of weird

sigh  
guess since Nannasprite’s yammering on about mythic frameworks  
I have to do the basic game mechanics  
which I was PUTTING OFF TIL NOW  
but I can’t run away anymore  
you can’t escape the past  
basically these imp things are from Derse  
you kill them  
you get pieces of grist  
which are those fruit gusher things I mentioned earlier  
this grist can be used to build shit  
you use it to either build up your house  
which is important because that’s how you get to the first gate  
which is located directly above the house  
or you use it to build weapons armor and other random crap

by scanning an object’s CAPTCHA CODE  
you can send it to friends like a file  
replicate it  
or combine it with other random shit  
like you know the platypus  
you could remake the platypus from scratch in Sburb  
then you could combine it with a sword  
then you could make an army  
an army of BATTLE PLATYPI  
to do your bidding  
that is totally something you could do

ok I think I covered enough of the rules  
if I don’t move on soon  
I’ll start talking about how to min/max the game  
and I’ll drink myself to death asking  
where it all went wrong

so while Nannasprite’s wrapping up her advanced lecture on Sburbology  
which is a thing I invented just now  
Rose has found the backup generator in the yard  
and has set up shop in her cat’s mausoleum  
so she’s back  
John’s like  
oh hey you totally missed it  
I totally wrecked this imp monster  
like it was tough but I showed that mofo who’s boss  
and Rose is like  
was this monster a short dude in a clown costume  
and John’s like  
yeah why?  
and Rose says  
cause you got like  
a million of them downstairs  
just ruining everything  
and John’s like FUCK  
so now John and Rose team up to wreck the imps  
John’s charging at them with his hammer  
Rose is dropping heavy objects on them  
and the place is just a fucking shambles  
Rose starts using the grist they get to build up the house  
like a really uneven skyscraper  
thankfully physics couldn’t give less of a fuck  
about things like foundation and brace beams  
out here in the medium  
because if it did  
then the whole thing would collapse in like  
two seconds

anyway by the time they’re through  
the house is tall as shit  
John’s got a new springy hammer  
he made out of a pogo ride from his yard  
but he’s also tired from all the imp slaughtering  
so he goes to sleep  
and he has weird dreams about clouds and gardengnostic  
but when he wakes up he finds out that imps are kind of like the slimes from Dragon Quest  
i.e. pussies  
because there’s these two massive fucking ogres waiting to grind his bones for their bread  
and use his blood for their ecto-cooler

back to Dave  
so he’s looking around the apartment for his brother  
and he’s starting to come to the conclusion that his brother might be a little weird  
the place is basically infested with sexually suggestive puppets  
which his brother uses for pornographic videos  
the worst of which is LIL CAL

gah  
fuck  
shit  
Lil Cal  
gah

Cal’s this marionette  
with a gold tooth and chain  
dressed like a gangsta rapper  
but physical description alone will not suffice  
to explain the true terror that is Lil Cal

imagine the night you were conceived  
there’s your parents  
doin the nasty in their bedroom  
and Cal’s there  
sitting on the dresser  
watching  
they turn to look at him  
and he stares right back  
then slowly  
deliberately  
he moves his weird puppet hand  
and starts to fondle his weird puppet crotch  
and he makes this weird breathing sound  
and you’re not sure whether he’s giggling  
or sobbing  
that is Lil Cal in a nutshell

anyway for the longest time  
Dave thought that his brother was just being a creepy douchebag for irony’s sake  
but today he realizes  
no  
wait  
I was wrong  
that would be stupid  
so now he’s genuinely creeped out  
because his Bro is nowhere to be seen  
Cal keeps moving around  
following him with the looming threat of sodomy  
but Dave knows Cal well enough to know  
that Cal does not make threats  
only promises

so eventually he freaks out and slices up a bunch of his brother’s puppets  
and start stockpiling as many of the extremely dangerous weapons lying around that he can carry  
and then he finds a note from his brother  
saying to meet him on the roof of the apartment building with Cal in tow  
so Dave does that  
and when he gets there he sees that meteors are tearing his city to shreds  
but before we can see what happens  
we cut back to WEST VIRGINIA  
oops  
I mean WAYWARD VAGABOND

so WV gave up bothering John a while ago  
because he found a food stockpile  
WV has been starving in the desert for god knows how long  
and is like  
hmm  
what should i do  
eat  
or continue to spy on this sleeping child  
yeah I’m still not convinced that Chris Hansen was destroyed during the meteoric holocaust  
so food it is

he struggles to open the canned food  
for lack of anything sharp  
so he starts playing with the cans  
anointing himself MAYOR OF CAN TOWN  
because he HATES KINGS  
this is foreshadowing  
he also draws a bunch of planets and moons  
which is also foreshadowing

then he starts dicking around with the computer  
which starts another countdown  
with 4 hours and 13 minutes to go  
but WV is not worried  
because he clearly has not been around countdown timers long enough  
so he plays with his can municipality  
by the time he’s done  
he notices that there’s only 4 minutes and 13 seconds left  
so WV wises up and decides that now would be a good time to get away  
but he locks himself into the vault by accident  
he finds an APPEARIFIER  
which he uses to free a firefly from a chunk of amber he found  
and he names it SERENITY  
dude Joss Whedon has been dead for four centuries by now  
the show’s never coming back  
I’m sorry  
then he appearifies the grate keeping him inside the vault  
and tries to get the hell out of can town  
but the countdown ends

fortunately there are no explosions  
instead the vault takes off  
it was a buried airship the whole time  
and it flies away  
burn the land  
and boil the sea  
you can’t take the sky from WV

the airship seems to have been located where Rose’s house was  
since you can see the severed hand of her giant wizard statue  
and it flies by the crater where John’s house was  
where we see a PEREGRINE MENDICANT hanging around  
but it keeps going to a mysterious island out in the Pacific ocean  
where it lands in front of this ancient temple dedicated to frogs

meanwhile in the present  
Rose’s generator breaks because the forest fire has pretty much reached her backyard  
so her mom pushes a button  
which opens a secret passage in the mausoleum  
and Dave is getting ready to throw down with his weird big Bro  
and John’s dad escapes from custody and puts the smack down on some imps

so now we’ve just got one player left to meet  
I haven’t been able to fit her in that well in these summaries  
because all she really does  
is make vague predictions and cryptic jokes  
that don’t really pan out for another few acts  
but guess what  
got a whole gardengnostic MARATHON coming up  
but that  
is a story for another time


	4. Act 3: insane corkscrew haymakers

right so we finally meet gardengnostic  
who is asleep when we first meet her  
but before we can name her something offensive  
and doodle penises on her face  
we find out she left us a note that basically says  
FUCK YOU JACKOFFS  
THE NAME’S JADE HARLEY  
and then she wakes up

now if I had to sum up Jade real quick  
I’d say she’s like a min/max munchkin type character  
because she’s simultaneously amazing but she’s also fucked up in a lot of ways  
she’s a genius who lives in a tower full of futuristic atomic technology  
but to get that she had to live all alone in on an abandoned Pacific island  
she can see visions of the past and future  
but she had to take the Narcolepsy perk in exchange  
she was raised by a nuclear GOD DOG who watches out for her  
but she’s a furry  
so yeah say hi and introduce yourselves  
Jade this is everyone  
everyone Jade

so then we follow her around her house  
and it’s basically like a nerd’s version of Cribs  
because she’s got like robots and holograms and teleporters and musical flowers  
and that’s just her cool shit  
downstairs her Grandpa has some pretty awesome stuff too  
like armor and mummies and stuffed monsters  
and his own preserved corpse  
but before you say anything about that last bit  
we gotta move on  
because while Jade is getting ready for a day full of shenanigans  
we gotta check up on the other guys and see what they’re up to

so John’s fighting off those two ogres from last act  
and he’s basically just treading water  
he’s giving them a good fight  
but they keep sticking him in a tire swing and they’re just twirling him around like a yo-yo  
if Nannasprite wasn’t healing him you would have to bottle him to keep all of his bits in one place  
eventually he beats them though  
and they leave a shitload of grist all over the place  
but they’ve punched a hole in his roof that leads down into his Dad’s room

now John has never been in Dad’s room  
he has never even seen the inside of it before  
John’s kind of reluctant to go in  
presumably because he’s expecting a Bluebeard type situation  
like maybe his dad’s been collecting the severed heads of the Rat Pack in there  
but since there’s a big chunk of grist in there  
and since his potentially psychotic father is currently stuck on a purple netherworld planet located in the ass-end of nowhere  
John dives right in  
and he finds  
not a hell of a lot really

turns out his Dad’s basically the most blandly normal person you could encounter  
if he has any interests besides formal suits shaving cream and Bing Crosby  
we don’t know about it  
so John’s shocked at first  
wondering why his childhood had to be filled with weird-ass clowns if his dad’s not that interested in them  
and we will find answers to that when we get back to him

in the meantime Rose has climbed down the hole that just opened up in her cat’s tomb  
and she finds herself in this fucking huge science lab filled with monitors and green server farms  
the signs say Skaianet laboratories  
so obviously we must be close to figuring out who created Sburb  
right??????  
ha ha yeah keep dreaming

oh yeah inside the lab there’s also a little pink bed and a tiny pink table surrounded by stuffed animals having a tea party  
that’s seriously in there I swear  
that wasn’t temporary insanity on my part or anything like that

so the information on these monitors seems to show the location of meteor strikes past and future  
there’s like a bajillion of them but it looks like the three biggest are aimed at their houses  
and Rose’s meteor is speeding towards her like a housewife who had to leave the bridge club because left the roast in the oven  
so she’s on a tight schedule  
Rose hooks her computer up to this stuff and reconnects with John  
and she finds a little four-eyed mutant kitten down there hiding in a tea pot  
which manages to be cute in spite of the whole four-eyed mutant thing  
so she’s all buddy buddy with the thing

but then she looks over and sees this weird looking arcade machine  
which turns out to be an appearifier  
it can appearify any object throughout space time  
so long as it wouldn’t cause a time paradox  
in which case it just poofs up some green gooey genetic material  
just a big ol wad of time jizz

so she uses this thing to look at her dead cat Jaspers  
and we get this flashback where we find out that Jaspers once told Rose a GREAT SECRET  
and he turned up dead by a river soon afterwards  
so Rose is watching his journey through time when she finds out that the body has been teleported to the lab  
so she grabs him and captchalogues him  
and she teleports back to the house right before a meteor smacks into the lab  
this happens so fast that she doesn’t even take the opportunity to wear a nice pair of sunglasses and calmly walk away from the blast radius  
so we are subtracting points from Rose  
in the game that I told you we are playing right this second  
don’t blame me if you’re losing  
i don’t want no  
“but not-odin i didn’t even know we were playing a game”  
life’s unfair  
GO DEAL

right so basically theres jack shit Rose can do except build up John’s stupid house and watch the fire come ever closer to making some Rosemallows  
and she is like  
agh Strider what the fornication is occupying the chief part of your attention  
make haste and extract me from this conflagration you hipster micropenis  
and the cat is like  
meow

so while this is going on Dave starts fighting his brother and Lil Cal in a 2 on 1 sword fight  
now you remember how I said that Bro was kind of a douchebag right  
I WAS SO WRONG  
HE’S AMAZING  
I  
I might be in love  
I mean his previous creepiness does not stop being a thing but  
GOD FLIPPIN DAMN  
when you’re this friggin bad-ass you get like a pardon from the President or some shit  
and he shakes your hand and hands you a stack of imaginatively creepy hentai doujins  
because when you’re this fucking awesome conventional morality no longer applies to you and you are officially ABOVE THE LAW  
I mean   
he is just kicking Dave’s ASS right now  
with this insane shadow ninja bullshit  
at first Dave just fights Lil Cal who is being manipulated via Bro’s bitchin ninja skills  
and then he gets tossed down the stairwell  
then Bro fights him in person  
and just thoroughly manhandles him  
and Dave goes down the stairwell again  
and Bro is like  
OOOOOOH YEAH LITTLE MAN YOU THINK YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO GO MANO E MANO WITH THE BIG MAN AND HIS PUPPET  
YOU THOUGHT WRONG  
apparently Bro talks like Macho Man Randy Savage in my head now I guess  
that’s how amazing he is

so by this point Dave has basically done more damage to the concrete stairs and his own cerebral cortex than to his brother  
but he just keeps climbing back up for another serving of ass whooping  
and this goes on for basically the entire act  
he’s like a modern Sisyphus or something  
if Sisyphus was being punished for thinking Ben Stiller was entertaining in ANY CONTEXT, whether sincere or ironic  
but before we can see how all this ends for Dave  
we must check in on the less badass characters of this story

so while we’ve got this stuff going down with the kids  
back in the future we have this pale lady hobo called PEREGRINE MENDICANT  
who caught a glimpse of WV as he was flying by earlier  
she’s pushing a shopping cart full of old mailboxes  
and she’s pretty attached to them  
this friendly looking robot worm  
(there is a phrase I thought I would never need to type)  
this friendly looking robot worm tries eating one  
but she cuts its head off  
the worm was attached to an apple shaped base  
located where John’s house once stood  
and she climbs in and it takes off in the same direction WV went

so while she’s flying the voices in her head  
(that’s us)  
tell her to rifle through the mail  
but she gives this really heartfelt speech about the sacred trust between the postal system and its clients  
and there’s like eagles screaming and fireworks going off and the star spangled banner is playing  
it’s like the 4th of July except there are no drunken fat guys driving around in a pick-up truck screaming and mooning Mexicans  
so since she has no kosher reading material she messes with a terminal which turns out to be one of those mind control computers  
PM sees Jade on a monitor through a shitload of green energy and static  
and she apparently knows who she is  
so she tries to talk to Jade  
but the green energy surges through the computer and blows up in PM’s face  
PM survives  
but most of her mailboxes are lost  
let us bow our heads and have a moment of silence

moving on

now since we couldn’t see what Jade was up to on PM’s computer  
lets check up on her  
Jade’s been screwing around with her stuff  
because she’s going outside to mess around with her pet and do some other crazy stuff  
after she has this really heated conversation with her grandpa’s corpse  
cause the dude is crazy intense even post-mortem  
she tries going outside but before that can happen she gets bugged by some internet douchebag called CARCINOGENETICIST  
CG calls her an idiot who ruins everything and Jade’s like  
man fuck off I don’t need to take shit from you  
how are you even contacting me not only have I blocked you and the rest of your stupid troll friends  
I’M WASN’T EVEN USING MY FUCKING COMPUTER  
and CG is like  
BECAUSE I’M A GODDAMN GENIUS THAT’S HOW  
and then he leaves  
I really can not wait to properly introduce you guys to this asshole  
so far John and Dave have been dominating the fuck-up Olympics  
but a NEW CHALLENGER is approaching and he’s a tough contender  
he’s injecting pure uncut jack-off into his veins  
he eats stupid and shits regret  
he’s like Ivan Drago  
if Ivan Drago was a science project to see just how much of a failure a sentient being could be

anyway so Jade goes outside and she finds this blue package that arrived via airmail  
but before she can get it she’s blocked by this eyeless glowing devil dog  
and she like shoots at it and shit  
but the bullets do nothing  
they either melt or just warp into space right before they hit him  
so finally she shoots in the exact opposite direction  
but then the dog teleports  
grabs it in mid-air  
and brings it back to her after she grabs the package  
basically this was all one big game of fetch and this is a perfectly normal occurrence on weird-ass science island  
but then Jade’s narcolepsy kicks in and her pet dog  
whose name is BECQUEREL by the way  
teleports her back to her room  
and while she’s dreaming a little robot activates  
it turns out that she has a dreambot to do shit for her while she’s asleep

so look  
when Jade dreams she wakes up in this golden replica of her room  
and whatever she does in this golden place the robot will do on Earth  
and we’re gonna talk about this gaudy as shit area before long but before that  
Jade examines the blue box she found  
basically months ago John sent out birthday presents to his internet friends  
Rose got her knitting needles  
Dave got Ben Stiller’s sunglasses from Starsky & Hutch  
and Jade got a SCHROEDINGERS ARTIFACT  
which is a fancy way of telling you that I can’t tell you what that is yet  
so keep guessing

but around the time Rose and Dave get their presents  
some more internet assholes bug them  
these douches have been stalking them since like the dawn of time  
and they’re so fucking persistent that John had to change his handle which was originally  
GHOSTYTRICKSTER  
so Rose is being bugged by GRIMAUXILIATRIX  
who talks like some stereotypical sci-fi alien  
all like  
Oh Rose Human Your Species Is Comprised Of Imbeciles And Reprobates  
You Cannot Even Keep Track Of Simple Time Travel Dialog  
If Only You Were As Smart As Me Then You Could Keep Track Of Our Nonlinear Conversations  
From The Future  
Oh But You Are Such A Simple Species  
and Rose is like  
hey I may be a simple human  
but at least I’m not the dumbass who decided to start our relationship from the middle and confuse the shit out of both parties  
great fucking job there Klaatu  
and GAs like  
Grr Hate You So Much  
(Call Me)

about the same time that this is going on  
Dave is being bugged by some guy named ADIOSTOREADOR  
who is really trying to be intimidating  
but he’s kind of fucking terrible at it  
like a mewling half-starved kitten is more frightening than this guy  
because at least maybe it could scratch you and potentially give you rabies or something  
but this guy is all like  
uH, YOU TOTALLY SUCK,  
i GUESS?  
i MEAN I DON’T MEAN TO JUDGE YOU OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT  
i’M NOT REALLY QUALIFIED TO MAKE PERSONAL JUDGMENTS WITHOUT REALLY SPENDING TIME AND GETTING TO KNOW YOU, YOU KNOW,,  
aND EVEN THEN, THAT WOULD BE A PRETTY RUDE THING TO DO,  
and Dave is totally unimpressed so he just decides to fuck with AT’s head and he’s all like  
hey bitch  
wait’ll you see my dick  
wait’ll you see my dick  
i’ma beat that undisclosed orifice up  
and AT is like  
i NEED AN ADULT,  
and he fucks right off

so while AT reports Dave to the authorities as a sex offender  
in the past  
let’s check up on the sanest character of this story  
John’s Dad

last time we left him he had just broken out of the Dersites’ custody  
and right now he’s just flipping out and wrecking their shit  
dude is like an atom bomb in a tailored suit  
and there’s this one guy staring at him through a magic window  
who sends guys to capture dad  
which they do  
they shove him in a jail cell and shove a fucking VAULT in front of the doorway

the guy reveals himself to be yet another black crab person  
and his name is JACK NOIR  
Jack’s all like  
ha ha now I got ya  
but that only lasts for about two seconds  
cause Dad is like NO CAGE CAN HOLD ME   
and he just rolls the vault away and socks Jack in the face  
Jack pulls out a knife and is ready to make some home-churned swiss patriarch  
but then Dad sets his goofy hat on fire  
and it just so happens that Jack hated that hat  
so he’s like  
oh well would you look at that  
looks like this cell is double-booked for some other political prisoner  
I’ma just look at my books and I sure HOPE nobody were to run off while my back’s turned  
wouldn’t that be  
oh you’re gone  
so that’s done with

now basically AR and PM have been both been flown to the same place  
which is seems to be Jade’s island  
except it’s not really an island anymore  
as much as it is one big dust bowl  
just like everything else  
what in fuck’s name happened to all the water anyway  
the oceans shouldn’t be going anyplace for another few hundred million years  
like sure a meteor will vaporize SOME WATER  
but an ENTIRE FUCKING OCEAN???  
how the fuck did that happen  
were they like magic sponge meteors or something

but anyways this is definitely Jade’s island  
because the closest thing she had to a neighbor was this ancient abandoned frog temple  
which she is going to go investigate when we revisit her in 2009  
and the temple’s still here  
but now it’s home to the AIMLESS RENEGADE  
who is yet another black crab person  
he’s covered himself from head to toe with police tape like a mummy  
and he’s got this massive fucking arsenal of weapons  
guns, grenades, rockets  
this dude is strapped like you would not believe  
he’s hidden in the shadows  
spying on WV and PM through the scope of a sniper rifle  
and he’s like  
grr we must protect the lifeless dust pile from trespassers who want to STEAL OUR DIRT AND OGLE OUR ROCKS  
and he is just like flipping them both the bird with his eyeballs  
and he starts shooting at them  
so they’re stuck behind a big rock

now for this next part we gotta keep jumping between the future hobos and Jade  
because there’s some serious time travel shenanigans going on  
see basically Jade’s dream self lives on the golden moon of Prospit  
the moon is chained to the main planet which is orbiting Skaia in all its puffy blue glory  
when the moon goes passes through the clouds of Skaia  
you can see glimpses of the past present and future reflected in the clouds  
it kinda sucks since its the kind of prophetic device that doesn’t ever tell you the whole story  
and just leaves you to set yourself up for tragedy later on  
but Jade’s like  
eh you gotta work with what you’ve got  
so this is how she’s been predicting the future this whole time

John’s dream self also lives on the moon of Prospit  
however since his dream self is asleep all the time he never really sees visions  
Jade’s visiting him in his tower and is like  
ugh wake up already you lazy sack of shit  
you’re missing out on all the psychicy goodness  
can’t you smell the confusing vagueness in the air  
but it doesn’t take so she goes exploring Prospit  
where she bumps into a past version of PM  
who is dressed in some poufy pastel ensemble  
oh GIRL do not get me started  
the fashion police have declared Prospit a fucking DMZ  
because everybody dresses like this  
but back on topic

so basically Jade is gonna be using her visions of the future to help the future hobos out  
and save the day  
when WV got there she poofed him up some rope to get himself out of the vault thingy  
and she sent him a note saying that he’s gotta give her the blue package she sent him because it’s totally important to the survival of their species  
so he and PM get all psyched up and are like  
GO GO GO  
and they make a break for the ships to send back the package  
and it’s like the battle of fucking Normandy for a second but they make it  
and send Jade the package back through time  
and the all-important contents are

a shirt and some pumpkin seeds

Jade you syphilitic dickhead  
you almost got two out of the three best characters killed  
just so that you could fail at farming pumpkins  
I mean yeah you made it so that you could give yourself John’s contact info in the past  
and form a little four person LAN party thereby indirectly becoming the last best hope for humanity  
but I’ve read ahead and I already know how bad things are going to get for  
EVERY LAST CHARACTER IN THIS STORY  
they do not need to have any more bullshit piled up on their plates  
because they are due for a FIVE COURSE BULLSHIT BUFFET  
in the not too distant future  
basically what I am saying is that one of those pumpkins had better go on to punch Hitler in the dick, okay

now while Jade was visiting John  
we see that his Prospit room has been defaced with crayons all over the place  
and in his actual house it turns out that the same thing is going on with his actual room  
at first he’s like aw fuck those little bastards just wrecked all my bitchin movie memorabilia  
but Rose talks to him and is like  
uh dude your room has always looked like this  
and John’s like what no way why would i act all creepy psycho that ain’t me  
and Rose is like  
uhhhhhhhhhhh  
yeah sure  
i ain’t gonna argue with mr oedipus about that  
but listen  
maybe your dad faked being interested in clowns because you drew them all over the fucking walls  
and he didn’t want to be a target on the day your inevitable murderous rampage began  
you’ve kind of got issues dude i don’t wanna talk to you no more  
how’s about you ponder this weird repression bullshit and make a few weapons  
while I get you ready to enter the gate  
that or die horribly in a fire  
whichever comes first I guess

but anyway back in the bad-ass district of the planet  
population: Bro  
Dave finally comes up to the roof again and is like  
AH CHALLENJ U TO SORF FUGHT  
ah mean  
I CHU-uhl  
man  
i don’t feel so good  
you don’t realize how many stairs we have in this high rise  
until you break every bone in your body on them  
i mean listen to this  
you hear that?  
that’s not the sound of maracas  
THAT IS THE SOUND OF MY NOW FLAKY BONE CHIPS GRINDING TOGETHER  
not bones  
BONE CHIPS  
MY SKELETON HAS RETURNED TO THE FROSTED FLAKES FROM WHICH IT WAS FORMED  
my skull is just dust right now  
i keep hearing sloshing noises when I turn my head  
and i’m pretty sure i can taste radio waves right now

but Bro is like  
pussysayswhat?  
and Dave is like  
killlll meeeeee  
so Bro’s like  
aw fuck you ruined the joke  
but I’m still calling you a pussy  
so they fight one last time  
and it goes well  
but only compared to their previous track record  
which was slowly turning Dave into a quadriplegic  
see they fight again but Dave’s sword breaks in two  
because it’s a piece of shit held together with the prayers of small children  
also their sweat, blood, tears, and maybe even a couple of chunks of fingers  
that’s just how sweatshops roll

so Dave collapses and the record logo on his shirt gets cut up so it looks broken  
and Bro is like  
man  
now I feel bad  
I managed to kick your ass so hard  
that you actually became a visual metaphor for inadequacy  
I mean for fuck’s sake you’re wielding the concept of penis envy as a weapon now  
you’re going to be killing imps with a symbolic chode for the rest of this story  
man just take the game and save your friends  
I can’t look at you right now  
so he flies off into the sunset on a rocketboard  
ain’t all bad though  
Lil Cal got butchered during the fight  
so some wrongs were righted during this whole fiasco

so Dave wakes up eventually and starts installing the game so he can save Rose  
and boy is she PISSED  
because there is not a single inch of her yard that ain’t on fire  
it’s bad  
it’s like a flock of phoenixes  
(is that the right plural? it’s not like deer where it’s just the singular word again is it  
or like is it phoenices? or phoenii?  
furthermore if a bunch of birds is called a flock  
but a flight of crows is called a murder  
do you call a bunch of phoenixi an arson? a smokey?? a flambé???  
okay this is a stupid tangent that I’ll examine more in  
homestuck retold gaiden: on the proper taxonomy of mythical bullshit monsters)  
but anyway like I was saying  
it is like a cauterization of phoenice flying overhead  
and five hours ago  
they had eaten nothing but street vendor hot dogs  
and now salmonella is wreaking its terrible vengeance  
and so there is more lava-temperature bird poop than air in the atmosphere right now  
it’s that bad  
and then suddenly all sorts of shit happens

Dave finally gets the game running and he’s basically being a total tool about it  
he’s throwing Rose’s personal belongings around  
casually roasting them in the fiery birdshit inferno  
and he’s placing all the vital machinery at opposite ends of the house so that Rose has to run back and forth  
slowly turning into a wheezing puddle of gothic fail  
just so she doesn’t die in the fiery tornadoes outside  
did I not mention the fiery tornadoes? because those are totally out there right now

so if you’ll remember that bullshit from John’s mad dash for survival  
you’ll recall that to get in the game and get going, you gotta prototype your sprite  
and spawn your weird little crystal totem doodad  
so Rose’s sprite gobbles up a combination of a princess doll that she turned into a Cthulhu type thingy  
and her dead cat Jaspers  
resulting in a bright purple tentacat in a frilly princess dress  
and then her totem generates and it’s a purple bottle in a crystal wine rack  
this is the game’s way of telling Rose that the alcoholism is genetic  
and that she will never be able to have fun at a casual mixer  
without getting blitzed, ripping off her shirt, jumping on a table, and screaming  
WOOOOOOOOOOOO  
PLAY THE PRELUDE FROM BACH’S CELLO SUITE NUMBER ONE  
THIS IS MY JAM  
THIS IS MY SHIT  
SPEAKING OF WHICH THIS IS MY BARF  
and then she blows chunks all over the waiter  
it is tragic  
even more so for the waiter  
who just wanted to make some beer money on the side  
which will now go towards laundering the gin, half digested potato chips, and eldritch black ichor from his suit

anyway so Rose is too busy attempting to not die to observe the bleak foreshadowing of her life  
but suddenly the severed hand of her wizard statue knocks the thing into her house’s river cum watermill  
ha ha ha “cum”  
and it’s about to go over the edge  
so she dives for it and makes a sweet save  
and the freakish tentacle of her undead non-Euclidean cat heiress yanks her back to solid ground  
at which point she shatters the bottle and is teleported into the Medium

while all this is going on  
Jade’s been exploring the frog temple next to her house  
she waited for her god dog to fall asleep and used a fucking grappling hook/zip line to get in there  
bad ass  
so she takes a little lily pad elevator downstairs and finds a giant flower bud attached to yet another countdown timer  
now instead of doing the logical thing anyone with a zip line would do in this situation  
(which, in case you are wondering, is  
1\. get out of there  
2\. track down Poison Ivy and beat the SHIT out of her because SERIOUSLY, this is like the THIRD TIME this year that she’s tried poisoning the city’s water reservoir  
and it’s getting fucking old)  
instead of doing all that, Harley just gawks at the fucking thing until the timer reaches zero   
and instead of having rose bushes sprout out of her eye sockets  
after the spores took root in her mucous membranes  
like you’d expect from this kind of contraption  
instead the flower blooms and waiting inside are Dave’s copies of the game  
which got there through time shenanigans which I will use to bore you to death with NEXT TIME

lastly, we gotta check in with John  
when we last left him he was stunned and confused about his newfound revelation about his father  
and he set out to find ways to cope  
and he copes by building A FUCKING ARSENAL  
AND KILLING EVERYTHING IN HIS MASSIVE HOUSE/SKYSCRAPER  
like sure it’s cutesy toyetic bullshit like bouncy ghost themed sledgehammers n shit  
and matching three-piece suit and accessories (FAAAAAABOULOUS)  
and yeah it’s just a bunch of little goo monsters and ogres that he’s killing  
but that doesn’t change the fact that John Egbert responds to trauma  
by inventing more efficient ways to kill living beings en masse  
and he is seriously covered in black goo  
which seems to be what those things bleed  
so it ain’t just me seeing this  
even Hussie draws him in full Dexter Morgan style

so after doing his best to put imps on an endangered species list  
John reaches the tip-top of his house and jumps into the first gate  
taking him into parts unknown

so for now we’re gonna have to leave the kids alone  
and let their various neuroses slowly fester and grow for our continued entertainment  
because the rest  
is a story for another PSYCHE

WELCOME TO THE INTERMISSION MOTHERFUCKERS

now you may be thinking  
“Oh man, an intermission, we must be halfway through the story”  
WRONG SIR WRONG  
we may be at the nominal halfway point of Homestuck’s 7 acts  
but those are some big ass acts coming up  
this shit right here? this shit we’ve been covering is like a Dr. Seuss book compared to the sheer amount of wordage going on in the next half  
and this intermission is only the first of many

now this intermission confuses a lot of people at first  
because it seems to have no bearing whatsoever to the main plot  
it’s just some random mindless violence starring a bunch of brand new characters  
and so a lot of people skip it  
BUT NOPE  
turns out it’s still important  
in fact what goes on here might actually be more important than most of what we’ve experienced in the first three acts  
everything before this was just the kiddie pool, really  
here is the last bit of simple ridiculousness before things get really complicated and really grim  
so enjoy it

so the heroes  
well I should say protagonists since they’re a bunch of amoral mobsters  
are THE MIDNIGHT CREW  
they’re a quartet of playing card themed 30s-style gangsters  
they dress in black and kill people in really horrible ways with a variety of weapons  
you’ve got CLUBS DEUCE  
who is like a fucking hobbit and is a complete dunce  
really I guess he might as well be Pippin from Lord of The Rings  
since he handles the double duty of   
1: being adorable  
and 2: being FUCKING USELESS  
then there’s HEARTS BOXCARS  
who’s the eight-foot tall bruiser of the bunch  
and he can literally swallow a dude whole if he feels like it  
but he doesn’t do it that often because he’s gotta watch his blood pressure  
and you would not BELIEVE how much cholesterol a body has  
DIAMONDS DROOG is there also  
he’s chill  
not much else to say about him other than that  
he just sort of smokes a cigarette in the background  
and you get the impression that if you accomplished this really amazing achievement  
Droog would be the aloof badass who just looks you in the eye, nods quietly, and then walks away  
finally there’s their leader SPADES SLICK  
who is just JACK NOIR in a fedora  
it’s not the Jack Noir we know though  
this one’s different for reasons I’ll get into in a little bit

so the Midnight Crew is beefin with this other gang of  
of  
man I don’t even know what the fuck the other guys are supposed to be  
I mean the Crew is all black carapaces like we’ve been seeing  
but the other bunch is just a bunch of weird semi-humanoid green things  
they’re like if you sneezed and your boogers suddenly started talking about how unfortunate it would be if your lovely price grandfather clock were to have an accident  
okay sorry for being so gross  
but these things look like giant piles of green ugly  
they’re called THE FELT  
and they’re all themed after pool  
not the swimming pool the stick and balls pool  
ha ha stick and balls  
but seriously how weird and awesome would it be  
if there was seriously a gang of swimming themed gangsters  
sticking up banks in bathing suits, water wings, and tommy guns  
that’s like the greatest Aquaman villains who were never invented  
woo tangent

but anyway The Felt are lead by this guy named LORD ENGLISH  
if you are not saying DUM DUM DUM every time I say that name you are really dropping the ball here  
because he is a bad dude whom no one has ever seen  
recently the Felt robbed one of the Midnight Crew’s casinos and the Crew’s been out for blood ever since  
when we first meet them they’ve just blown open the front door of Lord English’s odious green mansion  
and Slick is just drooling imagining how awesome it’s gonna be when he cracks open Lord English’s safe  
the Crew is scattered all over the mansion causing trouble however they can  
and we’re gonna have to gloss over a lot of what happens here because it is just so much nonsense

see the deal with the Felt is that they’re all TIME TRAVELERS  
each of their fifteen guys has a unique time-related ability  
mostly  
I mean some like Clover just make no sense  
the dude’s supposed to have ALL THE LUCK  
so right away he’s breaking the time traveling pattern  
but his luck doesn’t even seem that great since he gets the shit beat out of him for being an annoying little snit like constantly  
maybe the Felt just really needed to fill that thematic fifteen head count out and they got lazy?  
but anyway what I’m saying is that most of this act consists of the Crew trying to kill the Felt  
but time travel bullshit keeps making things super complicated

so after a couple of hundred pages a few Felt guys are dead  
when we started, in fact, two of them had already joined the choir invisible  
although they can’t sing that well having been viciously garroted to death  
their vocal cords are just flopping around on their chests  
it is super gross you guys  
but after a while the Crew has done a pretty good job of killing most of the Felt in spite of Clubs doing everything he can to dismember his own teammates in hilarious ways  
(Clubs is a monster  
he has the death penalty in five states for murder-via-slapstick)  
and Slick keeps checking off names from his hit list  
now the only name not on this list is the 8 ball Felt named SNOWMAN  
and Snowman is not on the list because Slick keeps his picture in his chest and has sworn to personally kill him  
along with Lord English  
along with any Felt he meets  
and anybody else who gets in his way  
it probably wouldn’t hurt his feelings if Clubs stepped on a land mine, too  
actually Slick has sworn to kill pretty much everyone  
he has undying enmity towards the entire universe  
it is not an exaggeration to say that he stabs people to say hello (spoiler alert)

right so eventually the Crew is doing pretty alright  
eventually they get into an intense firefight with the Felt  
but then both sides suddenly stop shooting  
this is because Snowman has suddenly appeared and there are two things that we learn here  
1\. Snowman is a curvy carapace lady  
and 2. killing her will destroy the universe  
hence why everybody has suddenly gone all Joyeux Noel  
except Snowman that is  
because you see when you take everything else with you when you die  
you can basically be as big an asshole as you want and there is very little anybody can do about it  
so she just casually takes her cigarette holder and jabs it into Slick’s eye  
having done that she walks off and is like  
ok you may continue with the murder  
and so they do

now there’s another big chunk of violence here  
it’s pretty awesome but there aren’t exactly a lot of high points to use in a barely cohesive rant such as we have going here  
so here’s the important stuff:  
we meet this Felt guy named Stitch  
who the Crew take hostage so that he can heal Slick with his weird voodoo effigies  
fix the doll, fix the guy, wreck the doll, wreck the guy  
blah blah blah  
you get the idea  
and while we meet him we learn about Lord English’s CAIRO OVERCOAT  
Stitch is a tailor and he’s in charge of the overcoat  
which is, in fact, the fabric of all time and space  
and it is falling to shit right around this interlude  
as is any idea of pacing  
we also learn that Slick, Snowman, and presumably the other carapaces were once poorly clothed desert hoboes on a dead world, just like WV and the rest  
there is a reason for this  
and then finally we reach the point where most of The Felt is dead due to shenanigans  
and the Crew finds the vault

Now the vault is tough as hell  
and it’s being guarded by what are, to the Crew’s eternal shame, easily the most competent members of the Felt outside of English and his as-yet unrevealed lieutenant  
Eggs and Biscuits are their names  
and they are extremely dangerous despite (because of?) the fact that they are dumber than  
than  
than a really dumb thing  
they are seriously the dumbest two creatures you will ever see  
amoebas will win more trivia contests than them  
they’ve bought the Brooklyn Bridge several times over, they believe in chemtrails, and they call in to talk radio shows  
they are anti-intelligent is what I am saying  
but the thing is, because they have the ability to summon copies of themselves from various points in the timelines  
they are effectively a two man army of infinite dumbasses  
so there really isn’t much need of brains  
if you can solve a problem by throwing an endless supply of stupid at it

so when the Crew runs into these idiots, they basically try and solve their problems with murder  
as usual  
but for every bullet they shoot there are, like, a dozen more of these jerks popping in to replace the dead ones  
so they’re basically losing  
Stitch tries to set the Crew’s effigies on fire while they’re being mobbed by the mass of Eggs and Biscuits  
(is a group of Eggs called an omelette?  
I know that usually you just call them a dozen  
but what if there’s more or less than twelve like there is right now?)  
but Slick rides in and just stabs Stitch through the heart with Snowman’s cigarette holder/lance  
yeah mundane things double as weapons a lot in the MSPA universe  
it’s really great until you need a hairdryer  
at which point you’re probably gonna wind up spraying a mist of angry scorpions all over your face  
so Slick kills Stitch and then he takes out this red crowbar  
which he took from this one Felt named Crowbar  
and this crowbar has the ability to disable other time traveling artifacts  
so Slick whacks Eggs’ egg timer with it  
leaving only the single pair of Eggs and Biscuits  
and Hearts is so fed up with this bullshit that he flat out bites Eggs’ head off  
as in literally  
and Biscuits gets locked in his portable oven with a time bomb

so now most of the Felt are dead  
and the Crew is standing in front of the unguarded vault  
they start threatening the weird little luck leprechaun of the group, Clover  
but he’s not talking because he figures that with his amazing luck there’s basically no way that any tactic they use will actually stand a chance of killing him  
and while the Crew figures out a way to get the vault open  
Cans, the big number 15, blows right through the wall  
…  
I feel like there is supposed to be a joke right here  
but I really cannot summon the effort to do it  
basically insert the frenzied affirmation of your choice into that empty space:  
“AW, ABSOLUTELY!”  
“SHIT, POSITIVELY!”  
“FUCKING BITCHTITS, INDEED!”  
and that way we’re all good

so Cans is like this huge ten foot tall motherfucker  
and he is so strong that he literally punches people into distant time periods  
Droog winds up shopping a week from the heist  
Hearts is put into another calendar year  
where he spends an eternity tending the horses of this livestock-themed calendar  
so Slick is rapidly running out of ideas, so he just goes  
fuck it  
and tries to pry open the vault with his crowbar  
using the crowbar on a time-magicked vault was basically a bad idea from the getgo  
because it sends him into an alternate timeline where everybody except him, Snowman, and the two head honchos of the Felt are dead  
so he walks inside and finds this empty room with only a trapdoor with a spade on it  
and he tries to open it with this special key he had  
which is also a barcode  
but then Snowman comes in  
destroys the key  
rips Slick’s arm right off  
and locks him in the vault

it looks like Slick is screwed  
but he remembers a trick  
since this entire collection of universes is one weird pseudo-videogame  
he can basically flip his sprite  
and the chessboard barcode on his missing arm will show up on the other side  
so he scans the barcode  
and walks in

so instead of the treasure he was expecting  
he only finds yet another of these mind-control computers we’ve seen with the other Exiles on Earth  
and when he turns it on  
he sees carcinoGeneticist  
who is this little gray alien with candy corn horns  
and who seems to be having ridiculous adventures on par with John’s  
and Slick seems to know him somehow and says hi  
but before we can find out how  
the intermission ends

so I hope you enjoyed the days when you could tear through a chapter of this stupid fic in a few minutes  
because from this moment onward  
there is basically no way that the chapters will not be long as hell  
so whenever I get around to posting act 4  
which judging from my past record will probably be some time in the year 2525  
you’re gonna want to brace yourself  
unless I have somehow already posted the next part(s) by the time you’ve read this  
in which case  
man you’re really gonna wanna take a break from this  
do you even remember what the sun looks like?  
go get reacquainted  
I’ll wait


End file.
